Essay Prompt for Monday/This weekend

2nd period - over the weekend, you are expected to write a COMPLETE and THOUGHTFUL draft for this essay prompt.  Students in 1st and 3rd period will be completing this on Monday.  If you are absent on Monday please make this up before Tuesday.    We will be working on this essay during workshops throughout the week.

Argumentative Essay Prompt on King and Thoreau

            King says that he writes to the clergymen because they have shown “genuine good will” and he believes they will consider his “reasonable” response.  Similarly, Thoreau says that he regards the government and his fellow citizens “as not wholly a brute force, partly a human force.”  Like King, Thoreau believes that his relation to these millions of people makes “appeal possible” and that this human group can ultimately be moved and changed.    King’s and Thoreau’s passion for civil disobedience is best expressed when Thoreau says, “For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be:  What is once well done is done forever.” 

Carefully consider the above idea. Then, write a well-developed essay in which you examine the extent to which our American government is a human force that can be changed by civil disobedience, including small acts of defiance.  Use appropriate and convincing evidence and explanation to support your argument.